Just To Be With You

She went to sit down on the couch, but he stopped her with one incredulous word: “How?” He made a sound of obvious disbelief. “You can’t even get away with a disguise outside. So how do you think you could ever fade into the background in my office?”

“Blending into the wallpaper is one of the first things you learn in acting class. And I’ll have you know,” she said with a confident smile, “that I can play a mean wallpaper.”

“I don’t care how good you are at acting like wallpaper, you’re a star.” A stunningly beautiful one, no less. “Hell, we both just saw the way people reacted to you outside.”

“You’re right that your colleagues will probably react at first because they’ve seen me in a movie or two, but it won’t take them long to realize that I’m just a person. And that I’m no different from anyone else.”

But couldn’t she see? She was different. So different that he’d been off his game from the first moment he’d met her.

His assistant knocked on the open door. “Good morning, Ian. Ms. Landon, it’s lovely to see you again.”

“Please, call me Tatiana, Bethany. And, actually, if it’s all right with you and Ian, I was hoping at some point this week that you and I could sit down together so that I can ask you some questions for my research?”

“Absolutely, Tatiana.”

Ian’s assistant had met plenty of famous and wealthy people over the years she’d been working with him, many of them from his own family. But he could see from the huge smile on Bethany’s face that she was especially excited about getting to spend some time this week with his beautiful, sparkling shadow.

“Mr. Thomas has just arrived and is waiting in reception, Ian. Would you like me to bring him in?”

“No, I’ll go greet him myself.” Before he did, he turned to Tatiana and explained, “Flynn Thomas is the founder of one of the most innovative cloud-based digital storage companies in the world. They’re not the biggest, but they’re the best, and poised for huge potential growth. I’ve been working to do a deal with him for nearly two years, and we’re nearly there.”

He held the door open for her, and when she headed down the hall in front of him, he was cursed with a view of Tatiana’s perfect hips covered in navy wool.

Wallpaper. Was she completely nuts?

“Flynn, thank you for taking the time to meet with me this morning. I’d like to introduce you to Tatiana Landon. Tatiana is doing some research for a role in an upcoming movie and has asked to sit in on my meetings today, if you don’t have an objection to her doing so. She’s signed a nondisclosure agreement, of course.”

In his late twenties, Flynn was a hell of a lot more self-possessed than most young tech entrepreneurs. In fact, it was precisely because he was nobody’s fool that he hadn’t yet taken an offer from anyone and still held the reins on a company that was increasing in worth by leaps and bounds.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Tatiana,” Flynn said, and as they shook hands, Ian could have sworn he held on to Tatiana’s just a little too long. “You were brilliant in Gravity.”

Tatiana flushed at his compliment. “Thank you. I hear you’re brilliant, too.”

What the hell? Were the two of them flirting?

Rationally, Ian knew it shouldn’t matter one bit who Tatiana flirted with, and yet he couldn’t quite bank his irritation as they made their way into the conference room where Bethany had set out an array of breakfast food and drinks.

Flynn didn’t normally care for small talk, so Ian didn’t offer any. But today, the other man was full of questions for Tatiana, particularly regarding some of the more technical aspects of moviemaking. She graciously answered his questions, and Ian’s irritation notched up another level at the certainty that this hugely important meeting was about to be completely derailed. But when Flynn pulled out a chair for her at the conference table, she simply smiled and said, “I’m going to grab a seat over there, thanks.” Taking a chair in the far corner of the room, she opened her notepad and began to write down some notes.

Flynn’s eyes remained on her for a few moments. He was clearly entranced, but when she didn’t so much as look up from her notebook and seemed as if she was totally in her own world, he finally turned his focus to the sheet of paper Ian had put on the table in front of him.

“This is my new offer.”

Flynn whistled low and long. “You got the board to agree to these terms?”

Ian nodded. He’d spent the entire weekend doing just that, as a matter of fact. “They’re as enthusiastic as I am about working with you and your company.”

Flynn looked down again at the enormous figures on the page, running one hand through his hair as if he couldn’t quite take it in. But even though nearly anyone else on the planet would have jumped at what Ian was offering, Flynn was not only one of the most independent-minded individuals Ian had ever met, but he’d also been jerked around by a couple of other investment firms the previous year. It had made him increasingly cautious about the idea of partnering with anyone.

Ian sat back in his chair to make sure Flynn knew the pressure was off, even though the full truth was that Ian would do pretty much anything to make sure this deal didn’t fall through. He knew it was crazy to feel this way after all these years of success and the huge sum of money in his bank account, but Ian had never been able to completely bury his fear over not having enough money during those years in college when his family had been in dire straits. An enormous deal like this one would go a long way to buffering that sense of security that he’d been chasing ever since.